This is a guide that is entirely written by Nightcrawler329. It was made public on the GameFAQs/Gamespot forums. It is listed as "incomplete". It explains in the guide you can find the modding videos on youtube.com through searching, but they are also linked on my Modding Videos page.

This FAQ describes how to edit the game files for the PC version of X-men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. It covers how to play as boss characters, how to re-skin characters, and how to edit the power effects and stats. Hex Editing isn't difficult, but some parts require a little experimentation and patience. I've tried to arrange this document so that the sections are in order of increasing difficulty.

You can find videos of a hex-edited game on http://www.youtube.com (search keywords "x-men" "hex")

You can download a hex editor for free off the internet. I use the hex editor found at this web site (http://www.chmaas.handshake.de). Pretty much all of the hex editors will have the same layout. The one I use contains two panels. The left panel displays the opened file in hexadecimal (base 16), which uses the digits 0-9 and letters A-F. The right panel displays the opened file in ASCII. You will be looking at the ASCII panel because it contains character strings that you can actually read and understand (such as names).

The save files are located in the folder "My Documents/Activision/X-Men Legends 2/Save". They should be numbered saveslot0 through saveslot9, where 0 refers to your first saved game and 9 refers to your tenth saved game (if you have ten saved games). Since you are going to be editing one of your saved games, you may want to make a copy first just in case you make a mistake.

Editing a save file allows you to play as characters that are not normally playable in the game, such as Archangel, Sugarman, and Apocalypse. You can also edit multiple copies of the same character into your game (four Magnetos for example) and characters that you are having trouble unlocking (like Professor X and Ironman).

Start by opening one of your save files in a hex editor. The panel on the right displays the file in ASCII, while the panel on the left displays the file in hexadecimal. Click on the ASCII panel and do a search (ctrl-f) for one the four characters in your save. Suppose the four characters in your save are Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, and Magneto. When you do a search for the word "cyclops" you will find that all four character names appear twice in the file. It is only necessary to edit the second occurence, which will look something like this:

Make sure that the editor is set to "overwrite" and not "insert". Once you're done, save the save file. Now when you reload that saved game, archangel should be there in place of storm. The list of character names that work is listed in the next section.

Below is a list of character names that can be hex-edited into a save file. The playable characters have full power sets and stat sheets, while the boss characters and enemies have 1-4 powers. Other NPCs, such as Kitty Pryde, Havok, and Selene have no power sets.

If you tried hex-editing the save file, you might have found that not all of the characters were given powers. Polaris and Dazzler, for instance, have no powers. However, it is possible to give them powers by reskinning. Essentially, you take a character that does have powers (either one of the 20 PCs or a boss character) and give them a different skin.

In general each character is assigned a number (Sunfire's is 12), which you can find by looking for the skeleton file. The names of the skin files are constructed from the character number followed by two numbers that index the skin.

Suppose you want to reskin Sunfire as Dazzler. Here are the steps:

1. Make a copy of one of the Sunfire skins (e.g. 1201.IGB)
2. By referencing the skeleton file, find the Dazzler skin file (11001.IGB) and open it in a hex exitor.
3. Then, "Save As" the original (not the copy) of 1201.IGB. What you've just done is replaced one of Sunfire's skins with a Dazzler skin.
4. Now when you play the game, Sunfire should have a Dazzler skin as one of his selectable costumes.

The skeleton/animation file specifies a character's skeletal frame as well as the animations for his powers. If you've already reskinned Sunfire as Dazzler, but you want to give her Scarlet Witch's animations, you need to save over Sunfire's skeleton/animation file. Here are the steps:

1. Find Sunfire's skeleton/animation file (12_sunfire.IGB) and make a copy of it.
2. Find Scarlet Witch's skeleton file (24_scarlet_witch.IGB) and open it in a hex editor.
3. Then, "Save As" the original (not the copy) of 12_sunfire.IGB
4. Now when you play the game, Sunfire should have
Scarlet Witch's animations. And if you gave Sunfire a Dazzler skin, you will have a Dazzler with Sunfire's powers and Scarlet Witch's animations.

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4.3 CHANGING THE CHARACTER HEAD

If you've reskinned Sunfire as Dazzler, you will notice that the head in the character wheel is still Sunfire and not Dazzler. To change it to a Dazzler head, go to the folder Programs/Activision/X-Men Legends 2/UI/hud/characters/. The files are named in the same way that the skin files are named. So, to figure out which file corresponds to which character, you need to reference the skeleton files in the Actors folder like before. The playable characters have a different wheel head for each of their skins (costumes). Here are the steps for changing Sunfire's 1201 head into a Dazzler head:

1. Find Sunfire's 1201 head file (1201.IGB) and make a copy of it.
2. Find Dazzler's head file (11001.IGB) and open it in a hex editor.
3. Then, "Save As" 1201.IGB (save over the original, not the copy).
4. Now Dazzler's head will replace Sunfire's in the character wheel (for his Ultimate/default costume only).

Now you know how to reskin Sunfire as Dazzler and change the animation and character wheel head. But even after you make these modifications, the name in the dialogue boxes and character menu is still "Sunfire". The reason for this is that the name is taken from the save file and according the the save file, sunfire is the name of the character. There is a way to change Sunfire's name to Dazzler. This method is described below.

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5.1 HOW TO CHANGE THE NAME

The Herostat and NPCstat files are what the save file references when it loads your saved game. To change Sunfire's name to Dazzler,

1. Go to the folder Programs/Activision/X-men Legends II/Data/ and make a copy of the file Herostat.ENGB.
2. Open Herostat.ENGB in a hex editor.
2. Do a search for the word "Sunfire" and you will find the word []Sunfire[] by itself. ONLY relace this one occurence with the word "Dazzler", remembering to overwrite and not insert.
3. Then, save the Herostat.ENGB file. Now Sunfire's name has been changed to Dazzler.
4. Since the game no longer knows who Sunfire is, you will need to hex edit one of your save files so that it loads dazzler instead of sunfire.
5. Now, when you load that saved game, you will get sunfire with his name changed to dazzler. However, there are still a couple of problems: (1) The wheel head is missing and (2) Sunfire's powers are missing.

Both of these lingering problems can be fixed by following the following steps:

1. Go to the folder Programs/Activision/X-men Legends II/Packages/generated/characters and find the sunfire files. There will be several sunfire files. For example, sunfire_1201 is one of them.
2. Make a copy of each file and rename it with "dazzler" in place of "sunfire." So, for instance, you would make a copy of "sunfire_1201" and rename it "dazzler_1201"
3. Now open each file in your hex editor and do a search for the text string "data/talents/sunfire" and replace the word "sunfire" with "dazzler"
4. NOTE: in step 3 it's only necessary to replace this particular occurance of the word sunfire. Don't do a search and replace on the entire file.
5. Go to the Programs/Activision/X-men Legends II/Data/Talents/ folder, find the sunfire (ENGB) file, and make a copy of it.
6. Rename this file copy as dazzler
7. Now when you reload your saved game you should get Sunfire's name replaced with Dazzler's, the Sunfire wheel head should appear, and Sunfire should have all of his powers available.
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-------------------------------------------- 6.0 EDITING STATS --------------------------------------------

So, you've learned how to reskin Sunfire as Dazzler, but the fire powers don't really match-up exactly with Dazzler's mutant abilities. To change this you have to edit the effects on Sunfire's powers. These are found in the /Activision/X-men Legends II/Effects/char/ folder. It contains the superpower effects for every creature and character in the game.

If you open Colossus' effects folder you'll find a series of power effects corresponding to numbered files - power1, power2, etc. They come in different varieties too - aura, charge, power, shot, trail. Suppose you want to change the effect on Colossus' p4 aura so that he produces whirlwinds.

1. Make a copy of the p4 aura file
2. Go to Storm's effects folder and find the p5 power
3. Open Storm's p5 power and "Save As" Colossus' p4 aura file. (save over the original and NOT the copy)
4. Now if you load a game and play as Colossus, his auras should have a whirlwind effect on them.
5. If you change your mind and don't like the effect, then open the copy you made and "Save As" Colossus' p4 aura. This will put things back to normal. Then, delete the copy.

Effect-editing requires some experimentation. For Dazzler's lights effect from the hex video, I replaced the effect on Pyro's aura with one of Professor X's effects. I also edited the code of the power manually and changed the lifetime of the effect so that the lights stayed around for more than half a second.